INWARD TO THE BONES

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INWARD TO THE BONES:

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S JOURNEY

WITH EMILY CARR

Kate Braid $20

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#44

Emily talks of Freud.
I hate him.
It was this new man, Freud,
who made them see only sex
in my paintings. 

But Emily slows me down,
shows me
the flowering of ribs and pelvis I painted today.
Here is your desire, she says.
See how you have wished it upon paper.
It is a woman’s mind, a woman’s hand, a woman’s voice
and you didn’t even know.
See how it shines from the inside, out.

Poet Kate Braid found her inspiration to write this collection from a brief meeting of the two painters Georgia O'Keeffe and Emily Carr in February 1930 at a showing of O'Keeffe's paintings in New York. It was a brief meeting: Emily Carr spent more time describing one of the paintings in her journal than the actual meeting. However Kate Braid used this meeting as an inspiration to expand into what might have happened had the two women become friends. What would happen if they were to visit each other's place of living and areas of inspiration for their paintings:  O'Keeffe in her New Mexico desert, and Carr in her British Columbia forest?  The poems are told in the voice of Georgia O'Keeffe, and explore the relationship of the artists to the land they paint. The struggle they have with making their art, and the tenuous and often unpredicted power of friendship.

1998 softcover, excellent condition; ISBN 1896095402